LETTER: Mayor: Data center criticism is welcome within the rules

To Ozaukee Press:

As the mayor of Port Washington, I am committed to maintaining open dialogue and civil discourse at all of our city meetings.

Over the past year, I have been grateful for the questions raised and the willingness of Port Washington residents to seek clarity about the new Vantage data center development. 

We have answered questions and engaged experts to address concerns about energy costs, water consumption, light pollution, wildlife habitats and economic impact. We held multiple public listening sessions and presentations, advocated alongside our neighboring communities regarding power line routes and demonstrated the significant economic and employment benefits from the project.

We moved our meetings to a hotel conference center after social media influencers mobilized individuals from inside and outside our community who disrupted council proceedings at city hall. We increased security, and although meetings remained spirited our police department professionally enforced expectations. When violations occurred, individuals adjusted their behavior or were asked to leave. I am deeply grateful for the professionalism of our police department, particularly this past week as repeat attendees again violated meeting expectations and were removed.

Today, you can see the early work underway for this $15 billion private investment in Port Washington. Our city needs investment to ensure its long-term prosperity. This responsible development accelerates our journey to fiscal stability for our city and school district. We are already seeing philanthropic contributions from Vantage, increased local and regional business activity and employment, contractor spending and infrastructure improvements. In the years ahead, we will experience significant reductions in our property taxes, a stronger school system with new career pathways for our students, partnerships with technical colleges to provide students with high-paying technical careers and continued improvements to the city infrastructure. This support for our lakeshore community comes at no cost to city residents and will not change the tradition and character of our city.

I am appreciative of the residents of Port Washington who have been open-minded, solution-focused and genuinely curious in their communications with us. Those thoughtful messages are taken seriously and help counterbalance the misinformation coming largely from outside our city. 

Political activists from outside Port Washington have attended our meetings with their own video crews and microphones to promote narratives that attempt to undermine our year-long efforts to provide residents with factual information.

Over the last six weeks, elected officials and staff have endured threats to our safety and our community. Knowing what we know about the tragic consequences of politically motivated violence we have seen elsewhere in our country, I want to make it clear that threats or acts of violence are absolutely unacceptable regardless of how you may feel about a given issue. All threats will be investigated by law enforcement, a process that is already underway. 

I hope we can all agree that this kind of behavior does not represent who we want to be as a Port Washington community.

Mayor Ted Neitzke

Port Washington